The U.S. Supreme Court recently handed down its decision in the case of Astrue v. Capato. The circumstances of the case are ones most of us will never experience. Nonetheless, the case has lessons for everyone. It underscores the importance of creating a precisely worded estate plan that takes all contingencies...

In law school we learned about the "fertile octogenarian" - a theoretical construct about what would happen to a property distribution scheme in an estate plan if you had some wacky birth order situation (ie: my great-uncle is 60 years younger than me). Back in 1995, this was largely theoretical...